I think cheap is a matter of perspective. Someone probably paid 10-15k for that originally. By comparison, this is plenty cheap.
In context of getting the absolute best deal, that may never be achieved, but in context of getting a high quality vacation experience at an affordable price... well only the buyer can say.
As for the larger market as a whole, I think that there are a number of disconnects in our economy and that the owners of capital have done very well these last 10 years, while the working class has not. However, given recent wage inflation and other factors, we might start to see an interesting economic shift. I doubt we will see anything resembling the great recession, but we are due for a dot.com level bust. Just remember, almost all those analysis you see on TV and working for those big investment firms etc have never even lived through a recession as workers (maybe some had exposure to the great recession, but how many were around for the .com?).
Only time will tell, but the longest bull in history has to end its run eventually.
You did ? If that was the Bali Hai 126k odd year [63k annually basis] on eBay with a winning bid of $99
You paid:
$99 winning bid
$299 Wyndham transfer fee
$250 closing costs
$103 MFs for January-March
$751.00 is the purchase price for 63k annual points is almost $12 per 1k points. Not a bad price but not cheap or in the tank in my opinion.
That’s assuming it gets transferred by the end of March or you’ll have to add more of the 6 months of MFs you paid upfront
I negotiated with the seller before it closed and offered the opening bid, closing cost, and six months of maintenance fees, if the seller paid the $299 transfer fee. Also, the maintenance fees they advertised were wrong. He showed me their assessment for 2018, and the monthly fee (with program fee) is $21.63 a month (not $36). They are asking for six months of maintence fees upfront. So January to June. Six months is $129.78. The last Bali Hai I bought from him in July, made it to my account in five weeks, so yes, it will be there before March. Probably more like end of January, but we'll say end of February. Those four extra months of maintenance fees, are maintenance fees i'd have to pay anyway, so I'm not going to include those 4 months in my final cost. So, the breakdown:
Final bid: $99
Closing cost: $250
Jan -February maintenance fees: $43.26
Total $392.26.
$6.22 per 1,000 points. Considering the most recent Bali Hai contract went for $9.60 per 1,000, $6.22 is cheap. That was a 75,000 annual that went for $421 and the buyer had to pay the $299 transfer fee. The one before that was a 256,000 biannual that sold for $1,000. Add in the $299 transfer fee, and you get $10.14 per 1,000. The one before that was $8.05 per 1,000.
When you compare it to the $1 contracts, it's not cheap. However, those generally have higher maintenance fees. For example, I got a 308,000 annual branson contract for $1. The 2018 maintenance fees on that one (not including program fee) is $6.13 per 1,000. This new Bali Hai is $3.54 per 1,000 (2018). Difference of $2.59 per 1,000 points. That's savings of $163.17 a year based on 63,000 points. Assuming the gap remains the same or similar, it will take me less then 3 years to make up for my upfront costs, in the form maintenance fee savings.
I only planned on having branson for 3 years, so I went for the cheaper contract with the higher maintenance fees, rather then spend a lot upfront. Plus Bal Hai contracts that size were going for about $3,500 and up and they were rare. It would have taken me over 4 years to make that money back assuming I could get one.